


So Into You

by thelastflightshome



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, and donald glover from the beginning of 'clapping for the wrong reasons' as jamal, i don't think i'll be continuing this bc i have left it unfinished for months but :), imagine chosen jacobs as him, liz is a sweetie i miss her, miles morales is mentioned bc hes my SON, mj is also VERY conflicted, mj is bi asf, peter and mj are roomies / bffs / used to be in a relationship, they're tricky but still really close
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 10:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastflightshome/pseuds/thelastflightshome
Summary: “Really? Cause you look upset, you barely spoke to me all day, and you seem to be doing that thing where you pretend everything is cool but inside you're fuming. Like that time we got stopped in the Target on Austin Street because they thought you were putting stuff in your bag. And you were so chill with the security but the moment we got home you started screaming.” Peter pushed his dumplings around in the container. “Anyway, I can see you're upset. So you should talk about it. It's better than, you know, burying it.”/michelle is plagued with flashbacks from high school involving somebody she used to have a crush on. why? a stupid instagram notification.





	So Into You

“What's the matter?” Peter asks her. He's sitting on the opposite side of the wooden kitchen table, plastic container in one hand and chop sticks in the other. 

Michelle Jones has been staring blankly at her noodles for about three minutes, her hands just resting in her lap. 

“MJ. MJ.” Peter starts repeating himself. He could be quite annoying when he wanted to be. “Michelle. Yo. MJ.” And then he kicks her knee under the table with his bare foot. 

“Hey! What? What is it, Peter?” She snaps out of it, defaulting to her disinterested and seemingly annoyed tone of voice. Peter plops his dumpling back into the plastic container, it's juices jumping up at the sides. 

“What's wrong?” He asks, big brown eyes staring at her carefully. Though they were in their twenties, Peter still had this boyish charm to him. He could melt your heart in just one look, with one small smile. 

Michelle kicked him in the calf with her barefoot, much harder than he had kicked her. But, Peter was Spider-Man. He could take a small kick from his roommate. 

“Nothing.” Michelle finally answered, picking up her chopsticks. She carefully picks up a bunch of noodles as Peter winces, rubbing his leg. 

“You sure? You look upset.” Peter continues after sitting back up straight. She slurps her noodles and he takes a sip of his Pepsi-Cola. (Michelle was a Coca-Cola girl. Which was better was an ongoing debate in their apartment.)

“I said it's nothing, Peter.” She insisted, shrugging. Peter wasn't having it, though. He knew her better than she thought he did. After over a year of living together and years of being friends, she still liked the idea that she was mysterious and nobody truly knew her. Which was bullshit, she knew deep inside. 

“Really? Cause you look upset, you barely spoke to me all day, and you seem to be doing that thing where you pretend everything is cool but inside you're fuming. Like that time we got stopped in the Target on Austin Street because they thought you were putting stuff in your bag. And you were so chill with the security but the moment we got home you started screaming.” Peter pushed his dumplings around in the container. “Anyway, I can see you're upset. So you should talk about it. It's better than, you know, burying it.” 

Michelle stared at him, long enough to make him shift uncomfortably. And then he added “Uh, you know, uh, if you want to talk.” 

“I don't want to.” Michelle decided, since Peter would wait for an answer. 

“Oh, okay.”

They ate in silence for a while, until Michelle left her plate on the table and moved into the living room, leaving Peter to clean up. It was his turn, anyway. Michelle turned on Jeopardy, sitting on the couch and pulling her knees to her chest. In the kitchen, Peter started doing dishes. 

Michelle grew up a lot in these last few years. She knew herself now better than she ever had. She had kept her sparkling personality, but gained some better traits. She was confident, she was headstrong. She had changed a bit, which was normal. 

“What is Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus?” Peter answered the clue, which was “SCUBA” in the category “ACRONYMS.” and he came into the living room, waving his hands around to dry them instead of wiping them on a towel. 

Michelle rolled her eyes at him, grabbing her cell phone from the coffee table so she could scroll through her social media. Her social media was the whole reason she was in a bad mood for the last few hours -- At least, it had to do with how she put herself in a bad mood. 

She scrolled through twitter instead of instagram, retweeting some posts for her activist account. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Peter asked, plopping down next to her on the couch. “I already told you no, Peter.” She reminded him, not looking up from her phone. 

“Did I do something wrong?” He blinks, eyebrows coming together in confusion. Michelle thought about it for a moment, as if she was really considering it. “Yup.” She says, lying. 

“Oh, shit. Is it ‘cause I didn’t separate the laundry? I know that bugs you, I just didn’t have time to do it yesterday. I don’t think any of your clothes turned red or anything -- Unless they did, in which case I’ll buy you new stuff as soon as I get paid-- ”

“Now that you mention it, I am kinda pissed. Remind me to sort through all of my clothes later.” 

She switches to the instagram app and lets out a tiny sigh as she looks at her notifications again. 

LIZ_T_1999 STARTED FOLLOWING YOU 

And that’s why she’s been in a weird mood, she’s been off her game. Taken back to when she was a stupid sophomore in high school, instantly reminded of how different things were back then. 

It was so stupid. But Michelle couldn’t fight her feelings, couldn’t push it all back. Screw Liz and her stupid instagram account. 

MJ could fix it all and just block the other girl, but it was too late for that. It’s been four hours since she got the notification, Liz probably looked through her entire account already and started doing other things. 

And, she really had no reason to block Liz. 

God, the idea of Liz following her and probably looking through her entire account made Michelle want to delete her whole fucking account.

She probably saw her lame selfies, her picture with her new baby niece, the recent marches she’s been to, old pictures of when her and Peter were dating. And it was embarrassing. 

Why? Everybody else looked at them. Why did it matter that Liz looked at them? 

Because. Liz was...Liz. 

“Stop breathing on me!” She swats Peter, feeling his breath on her neck, shoving him away from her. “Jeez, I was just -- I thought we could --” And he stops, shifting to the opposite side of the couch. 

“Did I say you can touch me? No, I didn’t. Leave me alone, Peter.” She snaps at him, eyes narrowing. “Are you -- Did you start a new vitamin or something? I’m just worried about you!” He expresses, hands waving rapidly. 

He was really lucky he didn’t ask if she was on her period or something, ‘cause she really would’ve punched him. 

And this is why they didn’t work out. Little things like this, they drove each other crazy, bickered to no end. When you’re living within four feet of each other, there was no privacy, no personal space. It was annoying. Michelle would’ve moved out if the apartment wasn’t so close to her school. And you know, if she didn’t care about Peter, or whatever. 

They weren’t dating anymore, but, they still cared about each other and shit. 

(It just made it that much harder to move on.) 

“I’ll let you know when you need to worry.” She grabs her phone and her laptop off the table, leaving the living room to go down the hallway, the last door on the left was her bedroom. She shut the door behind her, putting her laptop on her desk and took her phone with her to bed. She lays face down, eyes closed. 

“Play Childish Gambino.” She mumbles to the AI in her phone, dropping it somewhere in her sheets as it played Telegraph Ave.

It wasn’t that MJ hated Liz or anything, that wasn’t the problem at all. It’s just...It was simpler when Liz left her life, as shitty as it sounded. Liz wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t do anything bad to Michelle, they never had any issues with each other. It was just the feelings that Liz brought up that made Michelle want to shove down and never acknowledge again. 

It wasn’t that Michelle was insecure with her sexuality. She had been proudly and loudly bisexual since she was a junior in high school. She dated a girl before, just as she dated a guy before, and that was that. It wasn’t weird. She knew she liked girls and that she liked boys and that there was nothing wrong with her. 

It was just that Liz was the first girl that Michelle had real feelings for. Like, ever. The first girl that Michelle ever looked at a little differently, the first girl who made her heart pond a little faster in her chest and her palms sweat a little. 

It wasn’t that they were best friends, but they were friends. Liz was also the first girl who ever did...Real girly stuff with Michelle. Like, her hair and stuff. 

They were partners for a History project and Michelle had gone over to Liz’s house. The house was huge, it was like, a mansion. Much cooler and more extravagant than Michelle’s shitty and small two bedroom apartment in Astoria. The neighborhood was okay and their landlord was annoying and too white and the heat was never working right. 

After deciding they’d do their project on Claudette Colvin and pulling together some pictures on a powerpoint slide, they’d gotten distracted. It wasn’t like Michelle to put projects off, she’d usually finish them off in one night. She figured Liz was the same way, considering how well she had done in school and how determined she appeared to be. 

But Liz was flipping through some t.v. channels after declaring they needed a break, so naturally, Michelle joined her on the couch and let the television melt her brain. She was much more of a book person, television got boring. 

“Clueless is on!” Liz exclaimed, excited. “I love this movie. Have you ever seen it?” She asked Michelle, who shook her head. “No, I haven’t.” 

“It’s so, so good. Cher, the blonde girl, she’s so sweet. She’s like, a fashion icon, too.” Liz tells her, nodding a little, her eyes trained on the screen. Michelle crunched up her nose. “She kind of looks like Betty.” She said, listening to Liz gasp. “No way! She does not! Cher’s way cuter.” 

And Michelle raises her brows for a moment, noting the fact that Liz had deemed another girl cute. Not that that was super weird. Girls were indeed cute. It was just that Cher was cuter, and she was sweet, and if they were crushing on fictional characters, she wouldn’t have been a bad choice for Liz to have. 

That night Liz had taken Michelle’s hand in her own, her thumb brushing over her skin for a second (MJ’s hand was probably burning at the contact) before dropping it back down, standing up to get nail polish. 

“I -- I’ve never, uh, painted my nails before.” Michelle says, lifting a hand to brush her hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. 

“Really? Why?” Liz asks, pushing things around in her closet as she searches for something in the dark. 

“I don’t know. I just haven’t.” Michelle shrugs, clearly not looking at Liz’s long legs and only down at her lap. No wonder Parker thought she was cute. Not that MJ would only like somebody for their body, which was totally not the case. Not that MJ liked Liz. Or Peter. Or anybody. No way. 

“So maybe we’ll start with something..not so blinding. Maybe white? Or black?” Liz pulls down a plastic green container with holes on the side of it, showcasing a number of nail polish colors. 

Michelle leans over to look inside, picking up a couple to look at the colors. 

“Or nude?” Liz suggests, picking one up. “I was gonna use this color.” She holds up one from Sally Hansen’s INSTA-DRY collection. MJ gives a little bit of a smile. “I guess I’ll use that, too.” She says. Liz looks super excited about this -- Though, MJ felt it really wasn’t that big of a deal. It was just nail polish. Not everybody did their nails or their makeup. 

“We’ll be matching! Twins.” Liz shakes the small bottle before twisting it open, taking Michelle’s hand again. “I can’t believe you’ve never gotten your nails painted before. It’s cooler when you go to the salons and you get your toes done, too. They give you a little massage and a hot towel after putting lotion on you. It’s like, fifteen dollars at the one on Queens Boulevard. Not the one in Forrest Hills, the one in Sunnyside.” Liz goes on, carefully running the teeny tiny brush over Michelle’s bare nails. Michelle nods, acting as if she knows exactly where she’d find the salons. 

Of course she knew Queens Boulevard, everyone in Queens did. Same with Hillside Avenue, they were big shopping areas that also turned into parkways and expressways and ran through different neighborhoods. 

But the whole thing with the nail salons, she didn’t get. Of course, she could just google it. But of course she had to open her mouth. 

“We should go sometime.” She tells Liz, watching her carefully. “So, uh, I could get the full experience.” She somehow smiles, watching Liz smile back. 

“I mean, you could get the full experience here if you really wanted to. I gotta warn you though, I’m not the best at giving massages. I think I bruised my cousin’s ribcage once and I wouldn’t want to hurt you. Guess I’m a bit rough.” 

Michelle felt her heart pump in her chest. Was this flirting? 

Outside her bedroom, she could hear the front door shut. Peter was probably going out on patrol or something. He didn’t usually go out the front door, though. Michelle didn’t think too much into it, she didn’t care that much. She was over his whole Spider-Man act, anyway. He could take care of himself. And if he couldn’t, he’d go to a hospital just like everyone else. 

Not really, he’d heal in a remarkable amount of time. He’d just come back home and struggle to bandage himself up in the bathroom. Most of the time, Michelle would help him. But that wasn’t what she wanted to do tonight. She wasn’t in the mood for Peter. 

She picked up her phone, skipping the song that was playing and then going to her phone again. She felt like texting Cindy Moon, who she did actually keep in touch with after high school and through college, but she didn’t know what she’d say. 

‘Hey, Liz followed me on instagram and I just remembered I had the biggest crush on her, then on Peter after she left. What the fuck do I do?’ Sounded stupid as hell. Cindy probably didn’t have time for her bullshit, anyway. She was working weird hours lately at her new super-secret job, like, Spider-Man hours and while Michelle found it weird, she wasn’t going to go investigating. She hadn’t heard of a new superhero from Peter lately, anyway. 

Michelle was just about to send Cindy a simple ‘Hey’ before she dropped her phone back into the sheets, pressing her face into her pillow. 

Then there was a knock on her door. Not the front door, the knock was on the door for the room she was currently in. 

“Come in.” She mumbled, knowing she couldn’t avoid Peter forever and he probably wouldn’t rest until he found out what was bugging her. 

“I got you flowers. I know you don’t really like roses or anything crazy fancy, but I got daisies. I know you like those.” Peter stood in the doorway, holding out a bouquet of yellow and white flowers. His face was flushed from the cold outside. 

“Thanks, Pete.” She sat up, rubbing her face before she stood up to take them from him. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just, it’s me. I don’t know.” She takes the flowers and places them on her desk, standing before Peter awkwardly for a few minutes. Then he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. It took Michelle a moment to hug him back, sighing into it. 

“You can tell me anything, you know? Anything.” Peter mumbles into her hair. “I know.” She mumbles back, into his sweatshirt. 

“Can you just hold me for a while, Pete?” She adds. “Yeah.” He pulls back from the hug, giving her a soft smile. They weren’t together anymore and they hadn’t been together for a while. But, she thanked God she still had him in her life. Even though they fought and they bickered and they drove each other crazy, he was still there to hold her in his arms when she couldn’t keep her head on straight. 

Maybe it wasn’t a healthy relationship. But, whatever, it was theirs. 

Peter had laid down with his back on the mattress, letting Michelle curl into his chest. “So what’s bugging you?” He asked after a while of just breathing and running his fingers through her curls. 

“It’s stupid.” Michelle sighed, closing her eyes. “It’s not stupid if it’s bugging you.” Peter told her softly. 

“You’re gonna think it’s stupid.” Michelle insisted. “Spit it out, ‘chelle, come on. You know I’m not gonna make fun of you.” He argued. Michelle lifted her head to look at him. 

“You said that, but when you found out I loved the Jonas Brothers you and Ned cracked up!” “That was funny as hell!” 

He shut up when she smacked him on the chest. 

“It’s not. Nick Jonas is so sweet and he’s the best Jonas.” She mumbled, cracking a smile herself. 

“But, for real. I won’t make fun of you or anything.” He rubbed her back with his hand, tracing little patterns on to the fabric of her shirt. Michelle closed her eyes again, tearing her gaze from the boyish charmer that held her. 

“Liz followed me on Instagram.” She said with a breath. “Oh.” Peter said back. She could feel him shift a little beneath her. They never really talked about Liz anymore. After she left, there was no real need to. She left their lives, her father went to jail, and that was that. 

“I -- Did you follow her back?” Peter asked. “Nope.” Michelle answered. After a moment, she shifted to lay on her back, too. 

“You could follow her back, MJ. I mean, I don’t -- I don’t like, have feelings for her or anything, anymore. After I found out who her dad was, that kinda crushed it for me. I don’t care if you guys are mutuals.” Peter stared up at the ceiling. He kinda wished that she put those glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, like he had in his old bedroom when he was a kid. But Michelle wouldn’t do that. They were adults and shit now. 

“I know I can follow her back. I don’t need your permission for that shit.” Michelle gives him a side-eye, then looks back up at the ceiling. “I just feel funny. I feel like, like that’s inviting her back into my life or something. I don’t know her like that anymore. Why does she want to follow me?” She adds.

“‘Cause you’re interesting. I don’t know, Michelle. You’re diggin’ too much into it. Maybe she just wants to follow you. Like your pictures and all that. Maybe she misses you.” He shrugs. “Why are you all worked up about it?” 

Michelle groans, turning back onto her side to grab a pillow from behind her head. “I don’t know, Peter! I just -- I am! I don’t want her back in my life! I was doing fine without her.” She clutches the pillow to her chest. 

“She was just, like.” She fumbles with her words, feeling stupid saying it out loud. So she says it into her pillow. “Likethefirstgirlieverliked.”

“What?” Peter blinked. 

“She was the first -- the first girl -- I ever kinda looked at and thought, hey, I’d make out with her if the scenario ever came up.” Michelle felt like she was burning red, she couldn’t look at Peter. “I had the biggest crush on her. And it’s really stupid, Peter. I haven’t even paid attention to her in years and she follows me and all of a sudden, I just remembered how much I was into her.” She sighed. “It’s embarrassing, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Peter smiled a little next to her, shifting onto his side. 

“That’s cute. You liked Liz. I liked Liz. Then we got together.” He let out a laugh, his curls falling onto his forehead. “You should follow her back. We could stalk her page together.” He suggests. 

After a moment of debating it in her head, also recognizing how Peter didn’t make fun of her like he promised, Michelle grabbed her phone and went to the instagram page where it said Liz had followed her. With a glance at Peter, she finally pressed the REQUEST TO FOLLOW button. 

“There. There, I did it.” She says. The two of them sit there for for a few minutes, watching her phone, waiting to see if Liz would accept the request. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Nothing. 

They sit there for a little longer before she locks her phone again, staring up at the ceiling. 

“When did you realize you liked her?” Peter asked, laying on his back again. “I don't know, man. Sophomore year. But then she moved and it hurt but, I don't know. I got over it.” She answered. It wasn't like Liz was the only girl Michelle ever had a crush on. She was just the first. 

Of only a few. She never exactly had constant crushes on people. It was Liz then Peter, who she dated, broke up with, a Puerto Rican girl named Valerie from Jamaica (Jamaica, Queens), who she also dated and broke up with, then Peter again and now they were broken up. Simple. 

She dated Peter from her senior year of high school to her freshman year of college, halfway through that year they had broken up. Then she met Valerie in her Women's Studies class. Valerie, a short girl with bronzed skin and long shiney black hair. She was nice, but she also had the type of attitude that ended up driving Michelle crazy. They ended up not agreeing on a lot of political issues, which was a deal breaker for Michelle. She moved in with Peter when she was still dating Valerie, since they had remained close friends and she couldn't afford to dorm anymore. Valerie didn't like that, and while Michelle couldn't blame her, she also enjoyed how Peter walked around shirtless in the morning and his sweatpants were tugged down just enough where she could make out his v-line. Swoon. So her and Valerie didn't work out. Later on, her and Peter didn't either. 

“Weren't you guys rooming together during the decathlon nationals?” Peter remembered vaguely. He was only there for so much during their time in D.C. “Yeah.” Michelle answered. “But, it's not like we did a lot of talking or had any heart to hearts. I tied her bathing suit when we snuck out to the pool. That's as far as I got.” 

While Michelle was glad they won the decathalon, she wasn't happy about what followed. Her teammates almost died in that goddamn monument built by slave labor, (the fact any of them went on it was a disgrace on it's own.), Peter was “missing”, and coming home her parents hadn't bothered to show up and collect her. They didn't even know the team had gotten into trouble. Sure, her parents weren't a couple. Her mom was like, mental, and her dad was always busy but she thought at least one of them would be there to take her home. 

No, instead she had to call her stupid older brother Jamal. And he showed up right away in his ugly-ass 2000 gold Honda Accord, wearing floral denim shorts and a heavy black sweater and his brown glasses pushed up the bridge of his nose. At least he actually showed up. He hugged her tight, but immediately let her go once realising she was stiff as a board. Jamal wasn't an entire dumbass, so he didn't pry and let her stay with him at his apartment. He knew how much she'd rather stay with him then go back and explain everything to her mother. 

He didn't call her mother or their father, (partially because that wasn't his crazy mother and partially because their father probably wouldn't give a damn anyway) but he did drop her off in front of her apartment building the next morning after treating her to an everything bagel from the bodega down the block. 

When she rummaged through her bag for her key to her apartment, standing in front of her door in the hallway, her neighbor down the hall was leaving his. “Hey.” Miles was in middle school, in 8th grade. He had lived down the hall from her for as long as she could remember. 

“Hey.” Michelle kept looking through her bag, getting sort of annoyed she couldn't find her key. “Did the heat in your apartment kick in yet?” Miles asked her. 

“I wouldn't know, I'm not in there.” Michelle answered, sighing in defeat as she rested her forehead against the door. Miles was quiet for a few seconds. “I think our landlord is racist.” He said. 

“Well then you should file a complaint.” Michelle shuts her eyes. “Oh...Kay.” Miles says and she hears him start to walk away. 

“I'm glad you made it back okay, Michelle.” 

Jamal was a good older brother. She needed to give him a call. Sometime in the middle of the night Michelle fell asleep. She woke up around four am, in the pitch black, to her phone lighting up with a notification. Somebody retweeted a post from her activist account. But, also, Liz accepted her follow request. MJ nearly fell out of bed apon reading that, waking Peter up with a startling “--Wha-MJ!”, spider-fast reflexes grabbing onto her wrist and pulling her back up onto the bed and into his chest. 

“Don’t do that.” Peter tells her, huffing. “Did you have a bad dream or something?” He asks. Even in the dark, Michelle is sure his eyebrows are furrowing together in concern. “No. Look.” Michelle holds up her phone for Peter. 

“Michael J Fox and Tracy Pollan celebrated their 30th anniversary? Why is that so shocking for you? They’d never leave each other ---” “No, stupid!” She groans, realizing instagram must’ve refreshed itself during their falling off the bed fiasco. 

“She let you follow her back.” Peter’s probably got a stupid smile on his face. MJ puts her phone on the side-table, face down. “Yeah.” MJ rests her head against Peter’s chest, feeling his arms wrap around her. “What are you gonna do?” He asks, but her eyes are already snapping shut. She was exhausted and didn’t have to be up for a few more hours. 

“Get some sleep.” She tells him. 

Unbeknownst to her, MJ’s phone lights up with another notification. 

LIZ_T_1999 : hey ! long time no talk . i’m gonna be in town for the next couple days, i was hoping we could meet up and do a bit of catching up .

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! i enjoyed writing peter and michelle's dynamic, i also enjoyed creating a bit of background for michelle. i probably won't be continuing this, as i don't have any inspiration left for it. if you would like to continue this for me, you're most definitely welcome to! just give me a message :) i'd love to see where it goes. 
> 
> i'd love to see some comments & kudos as well !


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